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The Corporation Controls Your Life

After I heard David Cobb of Move-to-Amend speak last summer, I got to thinking about all the multitude of ways in which the Corporation has invaded and taken over our lives. Here is a list of how far-reaching the problem is and why it is of such overriding importance that we ban corporate “personhood”.

The Corporation controls:

Our industry – small mom and pops and independent businesses have increasingly been taken over by large corporations like Wal-Mart and the laws have been re-written to favor them

Our banks – small, independent, local banks have been taken over by huge multinationals that have engaged in criminal practices which have crashed domestic and foreign economies

Our airwaves – corporate giants have taken over major networks: GE (NBC), Disney (ABC), Westinghouse (CBS), Time-Warner, individual media moguls like Rupert Murdoch control huge markets (FOX Networks, 20th Century FOX, etc.) and Pat Robertson (Christian Broadcasting Network) while simultaneously fighting to end public television and radio, one of the only independent alternatives

Our drug policy – corporate interests support the “war on drugs”, thereby perpetuating a black market, violent cartels, and the criminalizing of substances like marijuana in order to maximize profits from legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco)

Our commons – “Too big to fail” corporations bankrupt local governments, convert and take over public land, property, and infrastructure for private purposes and corporate gain; exploit natural resources—minerals, forests, oil, water–for private profit with no concern for environmental and health consequences of citizens while paying no royalties

Our government – Congress, the White House, and the Courts–through:

1. Lobbying and the revolving door – in order to manipulate congress, regulatory agencies for the benefit of private enterprise

2. Elections – in order to buy elections by funneling huge donations into campaigns

3. Representatives and justices – in order to buy influence by campaign contributions, perks

4. Legislation – support and even write legislation so that it benefits corporate interests rather than the interests of the people

5. Ballot Initiatives – powerful corporate interests promote ballot initiatives that are often wolves in sheep’s clothing that serve their interests at the people’s expense while dumping huge sums of money into defeating others like the tobacco industry just did with Prop 29

Our government has been bought and has allowed the corporate world to monopolize industry, commit unspeakable crimes against humanity and the environment while escaping all accountability, paying no taxes, shipping our jobs overseas, bankrupting our country while getting government contracts, subsidies, and bailouts. All of this has been made possible by the expansion of the wrongheaded concept of corporate “personhood” which has allowed them to claim rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to citizens, NOT corporations. Corporations are mere legal fictions as they are artificial entities. This insanity has to end. We must amend the Constitution to end the corporate “personhood” sham once and for all that has been allowed to strangle our democracy and destroy our world.

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So let’s try to do something about it…like support and participate in the Continental Congress 2.0 and include ways to counteract the insidious influences mentioned in this article. Help us write the Declaration of Grievances to be presented for redress from the government. Take a look at http://WWW.the99declaration.org